Growth or environmental control or other controlled metabolic transformation of archaea, bacteria and/or eukarya domains in a liquid environment is challenging, in part because the ambient liquid allows transport of nutrients and other substances between the microbes, whether of the same species or of different species. Monitoring of the individual microbes for one, two or several changes in environmental, growth and/or metabolic transformation parameters is often required, if optimal control is desired.
Monitoring and control of a large number of environmental and growth parameters is often required in order to respond to predictable and unpredictable events that occur during growth, transformation and harvesting of algae. These activities should permit distinction between parameter values at different locations and different times in the growth and metabolic transformation processes, should permit optional prescription of vehicle trajectories, should provide for collection and prompt analysis of the measurements, and should permit use of multiple vehicles.